Town Square

Ten years since the flood and nothing

It has been ten years since the San Francisquito Creek flood Feb. 3, 1998 and nothing has been done. Oh, sure there is a JPA but they are small and ineffective.

The flood occured but the biggest travesty is what has continued what we have allowed to happen. The associate director of the JPA brought in (and hired) a few people she knew well. The debate about what to do about the creek has nobody to lead it and no sound thinking about any solutions. It's a lot like the present operator in the White House.

It's all voices inside an echo chamber at the JPA. A lot of failure and waste and all this at the taxpayers expense.

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Comments (6)

Like this comment

Posted by rick
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Feb 4, 2008 at 6:42 pm

Has anyone asked the city officials why this bridge hasn't been removed and the creek widened at this city owned property? Also a "berm" could be built here to prevent the city from being liable for any flooding from the city property.

About $3 million in taxpayers money was doled out to a few homeowners after the 98 flood. The attorney(s) probably collected about $1 million of this money for bringing the lawsuit. This could be a "cash-cow" for the attorneys. Maybe that's why no action has been taken (Comspircy theory).

The city needs to take action so they can't be held liable for allowing flooding from their property.

I gather that all of the private property owners along the creek can be held liable if flooding occurrs on or across their property. Think of the size of the class action suit that could occurr if hundreds or a thousand houses were flooded in the flood zone and the people,owners of creek side property were held liable. I would imagine they would be egar to give away their back yard, creek side property. Many of them own to the middle of the creek.

This property along the creek should be rezoned "Creek-side Open Space" or "Urban Open Space" and then made into a creek side park. It could be 100 to 200'wide park on each side of the creek with a trail from the bay to the skyline.

Posted by rick
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Feb 4, 2008 at 7:07 pm

I just remembered: The storm drain project will protect Palo Alto from flooding! This is a $20 to $30 million parcel tax program that will repair storm drains and also put a gigantic pump in the creek juse East of 101 that will lower the water level in the creek and thus prevent flooding. Everyone in the city is paying for this project. It was sold as a solution to the flooding problem.

Posted by Resident
a resident of Community Center
on Feb 5, 2008 at 7:57 am

Don't feel bad; the Army Corp of Engineers first came up with a plan to control flooding on the Napa River in the 1960's. To this day less than half the project has been completed. The Napa River still floods many of the same areas today more than 40 years later.

Let's face it, it is cheaper for the City to pay off flooded property owners at $3 Million a time, than it would be to fix the flooding of the creek.

Also, the flooding problems are a political nightmare involving Menlo Park and East Palo Alto. You can't fix Palo Alto and send all that water downstream to East Palo Alto.

Posted by Walter_E_Wallis
a resident of Midtown
on Feb 5, 2008 at 11:26 am

We are under no obligation to hold back the water that God sends. I suspect a company of California National Guard Engineers could remove the offending bridge and replace it with a long laasting Baily Bridge in one Weekend Warrior drill.
When idiots stop standing in the way of the recommended dams and other flood control structures we can get on with it, assure cotinued water and energy and go back to worrying about problems that lack solutions.

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